A Much Needed and Regretted Break

Over the next little while - how long, I
don't know - I'll be writing less frequently.
I just wanted to explain why.

First of all, the spring fishing rush is just
about done here. I put off a lot of things
until then so I could get all the fishing I
could do in. I haven't been out in a couple
weeks now I've been so busy with other things.
Now it's getting hot, the fish are heading back
deep, and middays are muggy and uncomfortable.

Mostly, I've been readying my big fiberglass
boat for sale. After owning it for a little
over a year now, I have convinced myself that
I do not like it. Oh, it's a mighty fine boat,
as big ugly bass boats go, don't get me wrong.
It is fast as the dickens, comfortable, lots of
nice electronics. I just don't like it a dadgum
bit. I can't go shallow places, some of my
favorite haunts, with its vee bottom. It sucks
gas like a Bradley fighting vehicle and, most
of all, to be perfectly honest, it just ain't
a wooden boat. That's a major part of it. I don't
feel comfortable in anything but wood. I was
raised in a wooden boat, spent all my life
fishing from a wooden boat, have built two of
them. I am working on a third, a sixteen-foot,
flat-bottomed skiff by John Gardner destined
to be my primary fishing boat by the fall.

The sale of the big ugly bass boat will,
therefore, finance completion and outfitting
of the wooden boat. This process will take
some time, so you see, I will be landlocked
for a bit. I will write when I can, probably
about the building of this boat, and whatever
fishing I happen to do in my dad's little bateau
or with friends when invited. But for the next
few months, I'll be pretty much cutting back
severely on the fishing.

It's just one of those unavoidable things.
Hope ya'll don't forget about me! I will be
back, I promise! I will take plenty of
pictures of the building process. She's
already mostly framed, in antique Douglas
fir and cypress, just waiting for bottom
and side planking in plywood. Should be a
beauty of a boat. Husky, built strong and
wide, I will power her with probably a 50
horsepower engine or so, no more than a 70,
depending on how she weighs out after
completion. I doubt she'll draw more than
six inches of water, max. The big ugly bass
boat requires three to four feet to get on
plane. Drives me nuts. Three to four feet
of water around here is a luxury away from
the river itself and the major channels. One
favorite place of mine has only about fifty
yards of water that deep. So I must jam the
throttle hard, get her up on plane, and haul
butt out across about two feet of water, praying
I don't hit anything on the way. It's no fun at
all, you can imagine. A flat-bottomed boat will
not only plane quicker, but sit far higher in
the water.

Besides, the guy who wrote a book subtitled A
Few Moments In A Small Wooden Boat shouldn't
be running around in a fiberglass bass boat anyway,
even if it is a Cajun model, one of the finest bass
boats built and representative of half my heritage.
No, it's just not right, somehow, and "A Few Moments
In A Big Ugly Bass Boat" just doesn't ring right,
you know?

See ya around the boatshop! ~ Roger

It's out! And available now! You can be one of the
first to own a copy of Roger's book. Native Waters: A
Few Moments in a Small Wooden Boat